Healthcare Analytics

The Core Engine of Healthcare 2.0 is Analytics

Healthcare 1.0 was broadly defined by a focus on defensive medicine, billing, and fee-for-service, culminating in the mass adoption of EMRs and data proliferation. So far, these efforts have failed to significantly impact the quality and cost of healthcare.

Healthcare 2.0 is a new wave focused on improving clinical efficiency, quality of care, affordability, and fee-for-value – culminating in a new age of healthcare analytics. Analytics will be central to achieving the systematic quality improvements and cost reductions demanded by healthcare reform. This new age of analytics will require a foundational set of analytic information systems that many executives have not anticipated.

The Healthcare Analytics Adoption Model

Many systems and vendors are talking about healthcare analytics as the “next big thing.” Unfortunately, many systems are attempting to implement analytics in a scattered, haphazard way. And many vendors are selling short-term point solutions which address a narrow set of needs, but do not establish the foundational approach to analytics that will sustainable and needed to survive and thrive in the upcoming healthcare reform market.

Health Catalyst has adopted the Healthcare Analytic Adoption Model (Source: Electronic Healthcare 2012), developed by a cross-industry group of healthcare industry veterans, as a framework to guide our platform and applications development. View Contributors List. This framework has been tested and shown to work in the most successful, analytic-oriented healthcare systems in the country. When followed systematically, it can help any health system develop a sustainable approach to analytics.

Purpose

The model borrows lessons learned from the HIMSS EMR Adoption Model, and describes an analogous approach for assessing the adoption of analytics in healthcare. The Healthcare Analytic Adoption Model provides:

A framework for evaluating the industry’s adoption of analytics

A roadmap for organizations to measure their own progress toward analytic adoption

A framework for evaluating vendor products

We believe that this Analytics Adoption Model will enable healthcare organizations to fully understand and leverage the capabilities of analytics and so achieve the ultimate goal that has eluded most provider organizations – that of improving the quality of care while lowering costs and enhancing clinician and patient satisfaction.

The Eight Levels of the Analytics Adoption Model

The Analytics Adoption Model contains the following 8 levels.(Click on any of the levels to reveal the specific descriptions of the model.)

Level 7 – Clinical Risk Intervention & Predictive Analytics

Taking more financial risk & managing it proactively

Focus expands from management of cases to collaboration with clinician and payer partners to manage episodes of care, using predictive modeling, forecasting, and risk stratification to support outreach, triage, escalation and referrals.

A Range of Products Across Analytics Stages

Health Catalyst has thoughtfully developed a range of products, applications, and services that span the different stages and levels of the Analytic Adoption Model. No matter where a system has progressed in analytics, Catalyst has a set of products that is optimized for your current environment and scalable to meet your future analytics needs, at the pace your health system selects. We divide our analytic products and services into three main categories

An enterprise data warehouse (EDW) forms the foundation for healthcare analytics. Most large healthcare organizations have hundreds of different technology solutions from various vendors. Without bringing all of this data into a single source of organizational truth, it is impossible to provide reliable and repeatable reporting and analysis. From the foundation of the EDW, organizations can progress to registries and reporting, population health, and clinical and financial risk modeling.

No matter where a system has progressed in analytics, Health Catalyst has a set of products that is optimized for your current environment and scalable to meet your future analytics needs. Health Catalyst currently develops and deploys product packages targeted to a specific segment of the health care analytics market which are facing a common set of problems. Historically we have focused on cost and quality improvement and are expanding our products into new market segments:

Our best advice on healthcare analytics comes from our experts at Health Catalyst

At Health Catalyst, we have many experts with years of practical experience and expertise. We get asked all the time to share our learnings and best practices with many different healthcare professionals. The following are a few of our most requested topics and subjects. We hope these may be helpful to you as you implement healthcare analytics in your environment.